How can they still say nothing?

[Purplegurple]

So numbers today over 183,000. How can BoJo and his cronies still be making no statement? No clear guidance, nothing. I'm not wanting lockdown or anything but can't believe they're so quiet over all this.

Why is people being ill something remarkable? Even feeling like utter shite for a few days - it’s not fun but it’s part of life.
I’ve never forgotten a flu I had in 99 and I was young then. I don’t live in fear of illness and if you are otherwise well you really shouldn’t even think about it

And not only do people think that they should never be ill, we talk about it as if they will be sick forever.
It’s a week per person, it’s not forever, and unlikely to be repeated once people have had their week

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

What does he need to say exactly?

183k caught a bug today which appears from the data to be fairly harmless.

Keep playing 'the cool girl' all you like.

You might want to pray alongside that, that you & yours don't need to go to the hospital for anything else.

... you know, given the hospital & ambulance situation.

@ashorterday

We are back to over 10,000 people in hospital in England with Covid, the highest number since the 1st or 2nd of March.

Is that 10k people who were admitted because they had covid and need hospital treatment for it? Or just 10k in hospital who happen to test positive for covid? Because the two are very different (I genuinely don't know which it is, as I'm way past the stage where I follow the news)

Some head of the NHS was tweeting yesterday that the profile is very different. He used the words “incidental covid” for the majority of cases. That is, people in for other things who happen to have covid, so their main treatment is not for respiratory problems etc. it’s for whatever brought them in otherwise.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

In hospital because of covid or in hospital with covid?

At the point where they cannot fit any more patients in, it really does not matter. It does not matter if it's spreading in pubs or hospitals... it's spreading.

twitter.com/chrisceohopson/status/1475540064121806856?s=21

Chris Hopson CEO NHS Providers

In truth I’m not sure what they could do that would make a lot of difference with omicron, it’s that rampant. What I would like to see is all 60+ and CEV offered a fourth shot ASAP. It’s the very vulnerable that are at risk right now, the people who would succumb to an ordinary respiratory illness. We should be focusing on keeping their neutralising antibodies as high as possible and attempting to shield them from infection.

@ashorterday

We are back to over 10,000 people in hospital in England with Covid, the highest number since the 1st or 2nd of March.

Is that 10k people who were admitted because they had covid and need hospital treatment for it? Or just 10k in hospital who happen to test positive for covid? Because the two are very different (I genuinely don't know which it is, as I'm way past the stage where I follow the news)

That's just a cop out and I'm sick of hearing it. All that 'argument' tells me is that you have no idea about how hospital care works.

It doesn't fucking matter. What matters is that there are a LOT of sick people who need to be in hospital and we don't have enough beds or staff to care for them adequately.

NHS medical director Prof Stephen Powis says that the service is on a "war footing". He has also clear said that the NHS "cannot wait to find out before we act" given the number of infections and uncertainty about Omicron's severity.

Deaths and hospitalisations are both slower to show up in the Covid data, often following rising case numbers after a few weeks. We haven't seen the result of the huge hike in case numbers that started just before Xmas yet.

What about the Professor comment ms don't you understand? Or do you think you know better that the medical director of the NHS?

Christ! People are ill. No, I have never worked somewhere where so many people at one time were ill in bed for a week or more. Some have taken up to 6 weeks to recover.
We have an older population in the UK. Most people over 50 have some underlying condition such as asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.

You think this is just like any other illness? Then why are so many schools struggling with staff? Why cant they get cover in?

I know there are lots who want to ignore covid. The point is you can try, but it will still have an impact.

@Hospedia

What is the concern?

That the pressures on infrastructure, such as staffing and admissions, is squeezing capacity elsewhere. There was a thread just the other day with a two hour wait for a suspected heart attack. My local A&E had a 10hr wait time. If the hospital is struggling to cope with covid patients and has a loss of staff due to them being ill/isolating then there is no one to deal with the heart attacks, the work accidents, the car crashes, the overdoses, the strokes, etc.

Yeah, almost 2 years in, you'd think even the stupidest person would 'get' that, but apparently not.

Hospitalisations are going up. Other operations will be cancelled as a result.

I am waiting an operation, I suspect it will be delayed as a result of all this.

For all the "it is only a cold brigade", well even though Omicron is mild it is now starting to have an impact on vital services:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/30/southern-cancels-london-victoria-trains-for-two-weeks-over-covid

Yet Johnson says nothing. His policy of relying on vaccines alone is falling apart.

Yes I’ve just read that about three Train lines. This apart from anything else is a huge problem. So many sick enough not to be able to work and/or isolating that it’s having major consequences. Hmmm

Great northern and Thameslink and Gatwick express also ( less centrally I think for GE).

@susan123

The deaths are superficially low as it's much harder to register deaths on bank holidays and Sundays. Expect it to catch up over the next few days.

Pointing out the obvious to covid deniers is a waste of time. In a fortnight, they'll see the results of pretending it doesn't exist, then whinging their kids school is closed.

Yes it will all be why are the schools closed! Lazy teachers.

It'll all be the tethers fault.

Poor year 13 will start university having never undergone a proper external exam session.

I don't think we can fully trust figures right now due to holiday lag.
I hope some of the cases are from previous days but feel sadly we will see some further deaths due to lag.

@JohnHuffam1812 sadly I can see that happening.
Year 13s have been seriously shafted.

The only thing I want them to say is they are cutting isolation from 10 to 5 days.

It will only really help with younger adults though. Everyone I know who has had covid who is older has been ill for at least a week.
The government don't monitor this though so have no idea.

Jesus I despair. Two years of this unrelentless shit and still threads like these are full of the "it's just a bad cold" /"I'm alright Jack" brigade.
Unbelievable

When deaths were high, that was the news story - rightly. When hospitalizations were increasing, that was the reason for so much panic. Now that this hasn’t materialized with omicron, the focus was on the fact that almost 200k people are testing positive for a cold. And because that didn’t create mass panic, now the angle is that we are out of LFTs. Oh the horror, won’t someone do something? Why won’t they lock down the country? Why won’t they say something? Some Covid obsessives are so disappointed that Omicron turned out to be so mild - something SA experts had told us back in November.
Anyway, as has been said by many sensible people already - cut isolation time to 5 days for symptomatic people and no isolation for asymptomatic people.

@DoubleShotEspresso and worse, lots still not getting that lots of people in hospital or off sick has a real impact.